AI Avatars use a cutting-edge technology, powered by artificial intelligence, that brings to life a 3D model that can look exactly like a real human being. AI Avatars enable professional text to speech. In other words, you can input your text and an AI Avatar will speak it for you in a professional and human like manner. This new technology is extremely useful for those who do not have a big crew or big budgets, such as students.
There are currently three online services that can allow you to create realistic text to speech using an AI Avatar.
You can easily create an AI Avatar with one of the most popular web-based platforms, Synthesia. You can choose from a variety of voices and avatars that you can use for your video. The length of your video can be up to 30 minutes, which includes your script and upload images, music or other videos that you wish to use in the final edit.
A few advantages of using Synthesia are: simplicity, realistic AI Avatars that look, speak and have the body language of an actual human being and the fact that you can customize features such as the AI Avatar or the voice.
This service is not free and it costs $30/month if you use it for personal purpose and a custom price that is available for companies, which is set after a talk with their staff. The personal plan is fairly limited and only allows you to create a total of 10 minutes of content/month, unlike the business plan. Another disadvantage is that their avatars cannot be used in paid advertising on the internet but you can create your own avatar, which you can use it anywhere you want.
Elai allows you to build a video using an AI Avatar. All you have to do is input your text, which can be in any of their 69 supported languages and generate the video. You can also create a custom avatar by uploading your video footage, which needs to be of high quality, preferably shot in a professional studio, where you will also have to use a green screen. You will also need to provide a 3 minutes of uninterrupted speeches and look directly in the camera the whole time you will speak. Elai is ideal if you wish to create Explainer v ideos, News videos or tell stories through Cartoons.
Elai provides a free option for those who want to try it. With the free version, you can create a 5 minutes 1080p Full HD video. There are also paid plans available, ranging from $29 to $500 and even a custom corporate plan, depending on your needs.
Synthesys allows its users to produce an AI Avatar or an AI Voiceover. Similar to other platforms, Synthesys allows you to create a video based on the script that you input. What makes this platform different is the AI voice, which supports 66 languages and accents. You can use this feature to create voiceovers for your projects or even for podcasts.
A few disadvantages of this tool are: increased time to create a video, which can take up to a few hours to get it done, not to mention the fact that video length is limited to one minute.
This service is not free. To use the video AI Avatar, you will need to pay $39/month, to use the Audio AI, you will need to pay $29/month and to use both video & audio AI, you will need to pay $59/month.
What are your thoughts on AI Avatars? Have you tried any of them yet? How would you use them for your film project?
I saw a few TikTok profiles that post content created with Synthesia. At first, I thought they were real humans! I am amazed by how well AI can speak and look like us, humans.